Murder charges against a key official of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat’s Fateh Movement were dropped on Wednesday when a court cited the 1991 amnesty law, reported Daily Star Thursday.

Colonel Khaled Ahmad Qassem Shayeb, who served as Fateh’s senior leader in the Bekaa, killed Kamal Mohammed Shayeb, a cousin who belonged to a splinter of the movement in the Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp in 1986, the Beirut Criminal Court ruled. However, the court dropped the charges against Shayeb, who said that he killed his cousin in self-defense, said the daily – Albawaba.com